


Savages

by Eridanie



Category: Hannibal (TV), Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Augment Hannibal, Captivity, Empathic Metamorph Will, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, POV Hannibal, Pheromones, Scenting, Sharing a Bed, Slavery, Soul Bond, Space Husbands, just underage for their respective species, underage but not technically according to human laws
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:42:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eridanie/pseuds/Eridanie
Summary: Hannibal (a human augment left over from The Eugenics Wars) and Will (a member of the Kriosian royal family) meet when they are both taken captive by the slavers of the Orion Syndicate. They soon discover that an intense and life changing relationship is developing as they collaborate to secure their freedom. But they both have secrets. They are more than they appear to be. They are both hiding dangerous abilities and proclivities. Some of these revelations bring them closer while others threaten to tear them apart. But neither is willing to let go as their relationship deepens (and darkens). But one thing becomes clear, as dangerous as they both are apart, it is nothing compared to the danger and chaos they can bring to the quadrant together.





	1. Is it Running in Our Blood?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is taken by Orion slavers and meets a mysterious young man (Hannibal's POV)

Hannibal had already been living alone for many years when his peace had finally been disturbed. He had been a scavenger, a single pirate, gutting wreckage and attacking ships alike. He liked to go after the new and shiny ships, vessels ripe with technology and information, computers and databases. He’d live on them while he learned all there was to learn of a new technology, a new people, and then he’d be off to hunt fresher newer prey.

He had lost someone, and for years he had roamed in a vengeful delirious bloodlust; destroying, learning, moving on. At first in the haze of his anger he had memorized nothing but martial arts, weaponry, battle tactics, enough science to wield weapons of mass and efficient destruction. But eventually he had grown taller and stronger and his mind had seemed to calm as he grew, smoothing over his rough edges like scar tissue. That was okay. He had already learned enough about fighting and war. Once he had felt small and powerless, but now his strength, size, and knowledge were so far beyond merely allowing him to protect himself. He could destroy whole worlds by himself now. But luckily for those worlds out there, he was no longer angry enough to see any advantage in doing so.

But choosing not to become an agent of chaos and destruction did not make him safe. He was essentially one good reason away from being the most dangerous weapon anyone could cross. So when the Orion Syndicate slavers came for him he was almost manic with the delight of knowing that he would unleash his blood lust on the deserving once again.

They had used some kind of device on him, one meant to inflict pain and control, and it worked quite well, he could see why their slaving syndicate had been so successful. Their technology was quite efficient. He was certain he could find a way to disable it, but it would be better to wait until he wasn’t being watched so he could take his time. Besides he hadn’t met with any Orions in his travels yet and he kind of wanted to see where this went. Living alone could get pretty dull.

The slavers were all male, boorish and smelly, and they spoke to him very discourteously, spitting mockery and insults into his face. He narrowed his eyes and knew that he would not destroy them in a quick or easy way. He would invent a new and unique torment for them. They would die slowly suffering. Slaving wasn’t personal, it was business, and these men had probably been raised in the syndicate and known nothing else. But there was really no call for such rudeness. They had made it personal now and they would regret it soon when they were begging for a swift death. But for now he merely glared back and said nothing. If they thought he couldn’t understand their language they would speak more freely in front of him. Something that always suited his purposes in the past.

  
They shoved him into a closed room that look like a cargo hold. Enhanced shielding on the doors and a few foam pallets and blankets thrown on the ground haphazardly were the only signs of an attempt to alter the space for it current purpose, which was clearly meant to be their temporary prison until they were sold. He looked around the cargo hold and took in his surroundings and fellow prisoners. The cargo hold had dim lighting and was very cold especially compared to the tropical environment of the planet he had been living on. He could feel his hair follicles tighten a raise at the touch of chill against the skin of his bare arms, but fought off the urge to fold his arms close against his chest for warmth. He was not carefree and alone anymore. He was a predator in captivity. A danger, and he needed to act like it. He surveyed the few bedraggled looking occupants he would share this prison with. His escape would be faster and more assured successful if he had a competent ally to aid him.

  
There was a creature that had to be over two meters tall, and of indeterminate gender and species standing in the corner, but also strangely snoring as though asleep. The creature had long silvery hair draping from every inch of its frame and wore no clothes, but it had bangles of hammered copper adorning it’s wrists and ankles that spoke to sentience and generations of culture. It had most likely been kidnapped from a pre-warp civilization. It’s lack of knowledge of technology or galactic politics, would mean it could only be a useful ally for it’s size and probable strength, and it’s status as a member of a pre-warp society also meant there was zero chance it spoke any of the languages Hannibal had learned from his studies of ship databases so he continued his search.

There was a young Argelian woman huddled against a wall. Argellian's were pleasure loving fools who abhor violence, she would be of no help, and besides she looked very young, and very terrified. So that was a definite no.

There was Bynar pair facing each other on a mat speedily chattering to each other in their fast paced language. Their language was easy to learn because of it's mathematical simplicity and computer based coding system. Most humanoids could not communicate at that speed without assistance but Hannibal probably could. He just wasn't sure that he wanted to. Bynar pairs tendency to alternate their speech like they were one entity always left him with a headache, and besides which Bynars were tiny, at barely over a meter they would be of little help if the escape took the form of a physical struggle at any point.

Hannibal turned his attention to the final occupant of the cargo bay. On the wall that faced the wide windows of the docking doors a boy sat curled with his legs up against his chest. He had wrapped a greying blanket around himself and rested his chin atop his knees. Out from under a mess of shaggy dark curls two huge blue eyes peered at him cautiously. Hannibal could see he was Kriosian. He had a light tan smattering of speckles across his forehead and temples and if that hadn’t been enough of a dead giveaway, his eyes bore that stare of depthless wide-eyed innocence that they all seemed to possess. Kriosians were amicable, cooperative, intelligent, and manipulative if need be, for all these reasons they made excellent allies, and what’s more he had studied their language extensively when he had scavenged the computer database from the rubble of a Kriosian shuttle and hooked the feed into the memory banks of his home. He told himself these were the reasons he chose him, he repeated it to himself behind his eyes like a chant. Unfortunately his capacity for self-delusion was not what he wished it was, and in his own mind there was a traitorous voice that mocked this blatant delusion as he carefully watched the boy.

In truth it wasn’t the choice he questioned. He had no doubt that the boy was the right choice for an ally. No. What he wondered about was whether it had indeed been a choice. Because in truth he had just found himself there in front of the boy, staring at his wide eyes, and soft smooth looking mouth, no trace of a decision to do so present in his recent memory. He’d inhaled deeply as a strange pleasant scent hit him. It was flavorless as scents go, light and weightless without the cloying sense of density that usually flooded his sensitive nose in enclosed spaces such as this. But its lightness was a dangerous deception. A disguise, because a soon as he took in a deep inhale of it he found his knees wobbling with a weakness he’d only ever felt after running for days straight. Before he knew what was happening he’d collapsed in an ungraceful heap beside the boy. The foam pallet gave off a wisp of dust as he sank into it.

The boy looked over at him cautiously his face displaying what was probably the appropriate amount of nervousness that a stranger ‘sitting’ next to you in such circumstances should cause. His mouth turned slightly quizzical after a moment and he spoke.

“Hello. I’m Will… Would you like some water?”

Hannibal stared at him dumbly, still not quite recovered from his sudden loss of free will, and silently took the canister of water he had passed him.  
He could feel the strips of warmer metal like an imprint where the boy’s fingers had been. He wanted to lean closer and get more of that smell until it filled his nose, but at least some small corner of his mind remained to remind him that this would not be the polite thing to do, and among the other favorable features the Kriosians possessed was their respect for diplomacy and courtesy in all things.

So he replied with a short thank you and provided his own name before taking a sip and handing the canister back to him. When he looked back up to the boys face he saw a flash of confusion before the boy began scanning his hairline. Hannibal realized the source of his confusion, and answered his unspoken question.

  
“I’m not Kriosian. I learned to speak it from a computer.”

He appeared surprised. Perhaps he did not consider his language easy enough to learn from a computer. Hannibal didn’t know, all the languages were easy to learn… if you were him. But it seemed this was not the case for everyone.

“Well your accent is very good.”

“Thank you… There were videos, audio recordings.” He shrugged.

“Well you’re obviously a quick study.”

His eyes took Hannibal in appraisingly, sweeping across his face and body. His compliment made him feel awkward, although he couldn’t think of any reason it should. It was only the truth. His wandering eyes were piercing and perceptive, trying to solve him like a puzzle. Hannibal returned the sentiment as he looked back at him. His clothes were fresh and clean. He was relatively free of injury, and he looked very healthy and well fed, especially when compared with some of the other prisoners. He had obviously been captured recently. Hannibal did not recognize the cut or the style of the clothes he wore, but the shimmery lightweight fabric was familiar from the clothing of the upper class and royal Kriosians, and his accent held a trace of that imperious and overly articulated tone that was a giveaway for most royals. This made him wonder at his ‘choice’ since the boys own family would probably buy him back for a huge price before long. But perhaps he was young and reckless enough to take risks with Hannibal anyway.

Hannibal hoped so. He was feeling a strange desire to keep this boy close. It was an uncomfortable feeling because it didn’t stem from his perceived utility. Hannibal wanted to be near him whether it helped him escape or made it harder. There was only one other person he had ever felt that way about, and the memory of her was something he spent a long time suppressing before the specter of his dark past could rear up to haunt him. Before it could turn his days back to the living nightmare he had fought so hard to escape from. There was no reason he should be feeling this way over a stranger. No reason he should let some random Kriosian boy threaten his carefully balanced mental state.

He knew most humanoids were irrational creatures, subject to sudden whims and flights of fancy but he had never been one of them in this regard. The thought that he was slipping into the same sort of madness he had seen pervade minds throughout the quadrant was discomfiting to say the least.

He and Will talked about escape. Hannibal should have been pleased to learn that Will had no one looking for him, that he would be appropriately motivated to help. But a dense irrational knot of strange emotions seemed to well into his gut whenever he thought about Will being in danger. He didn't want Will's help. He wanted to rescue him. This was illogical and completely ruined the whole point of finding an ally in the first place. But Hannibal could not push the uncomfortable feeling away, nor could he bear to distance himself from Will and formulate a solitary escape plan. He had thought himself beyond fear for years now, but know as he looked down at the boy who had fallen asleep still wrapped in his dingy gray blanket he felt fear again.

Laying there below him he looked to be all shaggy curls and long eyelashes, everything else disappearing under the folds of blanket, which he clung to tightly like a shield. His breathing was slow and steady indicating the depth of his sleep and so finally Hannibal laid down beside him. He kept a respectful distance but his nose was facing toward the cleft of the boys neck, the fact that the boys peculiar scent seemed to concentrate their was not lost on his sensitive nose. He wanted to pull the boy closer to press his nose to his skin and get that scent at it's source, while it was still warm from his skin. But he didn't. He closed his eyes and he planned out his escape tomorrow, until the late hour and Will's soothing constant presence at his side caused him to drift into his own deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to I write like, this chapter is written like Agatha Christie.


	2. Is it Running in Our Veins?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will awakens from cryostasis to find himself in frightening and dangerous circumstances, but he may have found an ally in a mysterious new prisoner.

Will was really having one of the worst days of… well his entire life really. He tried to remain calm as the panic threatened to freeze his thinking, it was a swirling chaos that felt almost as tangible as the implant that burned under his skin, guaranteeing his subservience. But the calm was more distant than he could ever remember during his meditation training. The hormones that surged through his body demanded a state of constant excitement that made it impossible to slow his heart. His thoughts felt more frantic than he had ever experienced, and he cursed his bad luck.

It’s not really like there is ever a good time to be kidnapped and held for ransom by the Orions. But there was most definitely a bad time, particularly if you happened to be an empath. He had never cursed his biology as hard as he had in the first few hours since waking up. He had always considered his birth status to be a gift, something that was valuable and could be used to further his family’s interests. Sheltered in the palace living amongst only close family and servants, he had never had cause to realize how vulnerable it could make him, how out of control he would feel when the hormones raged through his blood outside of the safety of palace walls. Now all he wanted to do was cry, but his pride would not allow him to shed tears while strangers were nearby to see. He had just thought to himself how nice it was that at least everyone was leaving him alone, but he immediately inwardly groaned at the jinx his thoughts had brought. Because of course it was this moment that the Orions shoved a new prisoner into the modified cargo hold they had been stuck in.

Will looked up to see a tall young man as he started to walk up to him, and he watched cautiously as he folded his long limbs smoothly as he sat next to him. The young man looked down at his legs with a moment of almost comical surprise, as though his own legs had suddenly betrayed him, and Will’s amusement faded as he realized the reason for his approach, and likely his confusion.

He was probably feeling the effects of the pheromones Will was releasing. When he had awoken in strange surroundings he had hoped against hope that he was amongst a species that would be immune to the effects of his Finiis'ral, and it had seemed until now that his wish had been granted. Although the Orion’s were not immune to his pheromones, they were inured to a much more aggressive and potent form of them from their own females. Unless they had been reared amongst only males and aliens their whole lives, he was not going to cause them an excessive amount of distraction or loss of control. Of course this also meant that at his most potent he was only going to manage slightly preferential treatment. But in no way could he manage to manipulate them enough to actually secure escape. So far all the other prisoners had left him be. So he assumed they were not feeling it overly much, or their implants wouldn't allow them to approach, but this man clearly was feeling the affects and was perfectly free to act on them.. He had no way to stop it though, so he hoped that this would end up working in his favor.

Will was surprised to find the man could speak Kriosian. As they spoke he sought to gather as much information on the man as he could. After all if things did not go well no… perfectly… from this point out then this man could easily end up as his bondmate for life. The young man was polite and knowledgeable, but his manner was stiff and cautious. He was clearly unused to living with other people. If his demeanor hadn’t revealed this, than his clothing would have. It looked like he had been living rough in the wilds of some nearby planet, one of the warmer ones. His clothes were clean, but careworn and faded. The colors and fabric battered from being washed on rocks and dried in sunlight. The clothes had probably fit him once judging by how old they clearly were. But now they were stretched taut and full of holes, the scale of the design clearly made for a younger body. His hair and skin were immaculately clean, but also showed other signs of the wildness he had emerged from. His skin he could see from the edges of where his clothes had covered him, was clearly once nearly as pale as Will’s own, but it had been bronzed from years of unprotected solar radiation, and his hair was rather wild and shaggy around his face, with no sign of the care of a barber or even a comb. Instead it looked as though it had been styled by a windstorm.

Will suddenly remembered something that had been worrying him since he had woken up and decided to ask Hannibal (as he’s said his name was) about it.

“Do you know the stardate?

He frowned in concentration clearly trying to convert the date from whatever measurement he used to Kriosian dating system. Will was disappointed, but not surprised by his answer. He nodded back.

  
“You seem distressed by my answer?” Hannibal replied, a note of enquiry present in his voice.

“Yes. I suppose it isn’t the best news. I was in cryostasis and I woke up here.”

  
Will had thought he’d seen the date from a distance on one of the control panels when they had pulled him from stasis, but he had been hoping he was mistaken, or their chronometer had been malfunctioning.

“I knew it wasn’t good news when I woke up here with the Orion’s but the fact that I’ve been in stasis for five years without being rescued means that something has gone wrong with my family. They would have rescued me if they could've, so either they’re dead, or they think I’m dead.”

Hannibal nodded sympathetically at this. “You won’t need to be rescued. If you help me we can escape.”

Will didn’t really like the idea of entrusting his fate to a stranger from an unknown world, but he did need to get out of here and away from people as soon as possible, and if Hannibal was succumbing to the effects of his pheromones this quickly Will had no doubt he would be safe with Hannibal, at least safe from harm. There were... other concerns but those could wait until he was free. To allow himself to be taken to the auction base in his current state was impossible.

Will was not supposed to have entered his Finiis'ral until he was twenty-five at the very youngest. By then he would have been fully grown and developed both in body and brain. He would only begin to fill out muscle and grow more hair as he became more fully matured. Instead he'd aged and matured as slowly as the other Kriosians but something had gone wrong with the age of onset for his Finiis'ral. The doctors on his world were no experts in humans, or hybrids, but they had said that his body had released hormones for the human maturation cycle of puberty, which starts much earlier in humans. Partially because it takes so much longer to complete than Finiis'ral, and partially because humans lived such short lives that they could not spare much time before beginning reproduction.

His half Kriosian body had taken the flood of hormones as the signal to start Finiis'ral, and subsequently he had become both medical marvel and ethical horror show in one stop. He had been only nineteen when he had first entered Finiis'ral and he looked it. He still had the spindly lean frame of a child, and the round unfinished hairless face that gave the young Kriosians a rather androgynous look. There was no doubt he was a child when you looked at him. But when one stepped closer the pull of his metamorphic pheromones raged unchecked, fanning lust and the heat of desire in the bodies of both the young and the old, male and female alike. It made most Kriosian’s wildly uncomfortable for obvious reasons, and anyone it didn’t make uncomfortable probably already had something wrong with them.

  
So he had been locked away from the world and continually dosed with suppressants to make his presence tolerable for their servants, and to try and extend his childhood closer to the proper length of time.

But when he had awoken he’d gone without his suppressants for the first time in years and his Finiis'ral came roaring back to life with a vengeance, his body seemingly determined to swiftly reclaim it's plans and hell-bent on making up for lost time. And so… he needed to get out of this situation fast or he would be bonded for life at only twenty two to a complete stranger, and that was the best-case scenario. He felt an internal shudder as he tried to push back any attempt to imagine what the worst-case scenario could be. He was pretty sure he didn’t have enough life experience to adequately picture it yet, and he was glad for that. He just hoped it stayed that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to I write like this chapter is written like Anne Rice... Yaayy!!!


	3. Is it Running in Our Genes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal escapes his captors and gets his revenge with a little help from his new friend. But Will has a dangerous secret. Another type of captivity may await them both.

Once Hannibal had secured the boy’s trust, or enough of it to aid him, he had enlisted his help for their escape. He probably would not have needed his help anyway, as it turned out these Orion’s were astoundingly stupid and slow. They were probably the lowest and newest of the syndicate. He had slaughtered them one by one with ease. The first few he dispatched silently but his confidence and impatience with the lack of challenge drove him to kill in increasingly more brutal and inventive ways until his face was coated in a spray of dark green blood and his hands throbbed from the impacts he had driven into bulky flesh.

“The crew manifest lists fourteen crew-members and I’ve just killed number fourteen.” Hannibal turned back to Will and a hungry animalistic grin animated his cool features. “The ship is ours.” Will looked up at him with a startled expression on his face. Perhaps he should have toned it down on the gore. This kid was probably raised in a palace after all.

“Why did you do that?” He asked, voice shaking.

“They took us captive. We needed to escape.”

“But you could have taken the first man’s phaser rifle. Stunned or injured the rest. We still would have been free. You didn’t need to do… this.”

He flung his arms out to gesture to the room at large. Hannibal followed his haunted gaze and took in the green arterial spray across the walls and the Orion man on the floor who was missing a chunk of his neck. Yeah he probably should have toned it down more. He thought to himself. Hannibal hadn’t spent much time around non Klingon humanoids but it was his understanding that most were a bit more squeamish about these things than he was. Particularly the ones who lived in large complex societies.

“They wanted to enslave us, so they are our enemies. Better to get rid of them now than to leave thirteen alive to return and enslave us in the future.”

Will nodded at this. “I suppose that makes sense.” He agreed but he didn’t look completely convinced. He still looked worried.

Hannibal knew enough about himself to know that Will probably should be worried. But some unfamiliar emotion rushed through him at the sight of that expression. He wanted to fix it. To take all his fear away, or make him fearless.

Hannibal knew that returning the other prisoners to their homes, or at least dropping them off at a nearby star base would be the nice thing to do, but he had no patience for unnecessary space travel, and he did not wish to interact with those beings for any longer than necessary. So he activated the emergency evacuation procedures so the other prisoners could escape on the ship's shuttle pods before laying in a course back to his home. They were near many habitable planets and most of them weren’t to far from their home worlds so he knew they would be fine. At any rate they were certainly in much better circumstances now than they had been a few hours ago.

  
Will glanced over his shoulder at the controls. Gesturing toward the coordinates on display he asked. Is that where you live?

Hannibal felt a slight flush of embarrassment that he had forgotten about where Will might need to go. He had felt strongly that Will would come home with him and now that light had been cast on this assumption he became self conscious and alarmed at his own irrational certainty. But his need to make Will come home with him did not subside.

  
“Yes. You can stay with me there until we find out what has become of your family. I have computer databases from many worlds there.” Hannibal hoped an alarming amount he would agree.

“I… That does sound like a good plan. But I can’t afford to take my time. I need to get back to Krios, or at least find a Kriosian doctor, soon.”

Hannibal felt the clench of alarm rise in his throat.

“Why do you need a doctor? Are you sick?”

Will could hear the concern in Hannibal’s voice, he flattened his lips in negation but then he realized that Hannibal had learned Kriosian mostly from written and audio recordings. There was no reason he would be able to understand the more casual nonverbal communication of Kriosian gestures.

“No. I am not sick exactly. I am undergoing a change that is natural for Kriosians and I need suppressants to make it stop.”

“If it a natural state for your people why should you desire to stop it?”

Will wondered how much was safe to reveal. He was a stranger, an apparently violent and bloodthirsty stranger. But he had also saved Will from a truly terrible fate, and he seemed genuinely concerned for Will’s welfare, whether that was caused by his pheromones or not, it really didn’t matter. He was unlikely to find more sympathetic aid. And in truth he needed Hannibal to understand the importance of him getting his medication and he could think of no better motivation than the truth.

  
“I am in Finiis'ral and I am an empath, so if I do not take suppressants as soon as possible I will end up bonded for life to whoever I happen to be with.”

Hannibal frowned in thought at this new information. “Surely that is only a risk if you are around a female Kriosian?”

Will shook his head emphatically.

“No. Whoever I am around, any gender, any age, any species. My Finiis'ral will bond me to whoever I am near.”

“But what if you don’t like the person you’re near?”

“That would matter if I were a typical Kriosian. But I am an Empathic Metamorph. We only make up two percent of the Kriosian population but we change during our Finiis'ral. When we are near someone we embody whatever that person's ideal mate is. If our Finiis'ral concludes in this state we will be their ideal forever.”

  
Hannibal looked a little shocked at this news although he was clearly trying to temper his reaction.

“Well. I can certainly see why the Orion’s thought it would be profitable to abduct you. An ability like that would be quite valuable to some, even if you weren’t also a royal.”

  
Will’s eyebrow’s quirked at this accurate assumption. “What makes you think I am a royal?”

Hannibal smirked cockily. “It was just a guess. But you have that manner about you.”

"I will get you to Krios Prime as fast as we can make it. I don’t want you to... suffer ill consequences from your captivity."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to I write like, this chapter was written most like Arthur Clarke.


	4. Is it in Our DNA?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has escaped captivity with a new ally, but there is no escape from his own biology. He's starting to wonder if he will make it out in time.

Hannibal had laid in a course for Krios Prime. He had automated as much as possible to compensate for the missing crew, and once he had no longer needed Will’s assistance Will had retired to as far away from Hannibal as it was possible to get on this ship. His desire to be near him, to seek him out was already disturbingly strong. Causing him to fear his Finiis'ral was progressing faster than it ought to. To be bonded at such a young age would be an unmitigated disaster. Hannibal seemed like an acceptable person, bloodthirstiness aside. But his bonding was meant to happen when he was older, and his status as an unstable hybrid meant it likely shouldn’t happen at all, and besides. If he was to spend the rest of his life with a stranger, it would be much better if it was with someone who had actually wanted it, whatever the reason, than a stranger who would probably resent the loss of free will and autonomy when the bond sealed.

He had searched the ship, desperately hoping that the stasis pod he had been in for the last five years had been taken aboard as well. If he couldn’t find that any stasis chamber would do, but he'd had no such luck. He'd ransacked their emergency medical supply looking frantically for anything that resembled the medicine he needed. But the meager emergency supply yielded nothing that would buy him time. They were approximately eighty-seven hours away from Krios Prime and he could do nothing but hope it was a short enough time to escape the inexorable march of his biology.

He had spent the last day catching up on what little news and recent history was to be found in the Orion’s database. He had five years to catch up with. However when he found himself reading the same sentence over and over again he gave up and found one of the crew’s quarters. He ripped off the bed coverings that reeked of Orion and tossed them in a corner before lying down and giving in to sleep. When he woke up he felt truly terrible. His abdomen hurt in an angry twisting kind of way, and his lungs burned and felt heavy and wet like when he was a small child and he’d been stung by a Mevlana nettle. When he pushed up out of bed and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, his head swam, but clarity descended despite this. He had heard about these symptoms. This was the Finiis'ral pains, these were the symptoms that came on, and why Kriosians always drank large quantities of Khayam tea during Finiis'ral. Of course he would have his when he was to far away from home to obtain the only thing that would help. That was just the kind of life he seemed to be living.

He went back to the medical supplies and dug out some painkillers that would at least help his head clear. He felt a sudden inexplicable presence at his back, and when he stood back up he saw that Hannibal stood behind him less than a meter away. He had been so silent that his presence there should have startled him, but it hadn’t. He’d known he was there. He could feel it. It was fascinating and exciting in a scientific kind of way to feel the changes that his Finiis'ral wrought on him. To know his very perception was so altered, but there was a core of fear their as well, because each change brought him closer to a point neither could return from.

“You shouldn’t walk so silently. You’ll scare people that way." Hannibal’s eyebrows quirked at this comment.

  
“You knew I was there.” He replied with a faint almost proud looking smile on those gracile lips.

Will wasn’t sure if that smile made him want to slap him or kiss him, but he was sure neither was an appropriate impulse for him to be having. It made him wonder at what changes to his temperament this exposure to Hannibal could have. He still felt mostly like himself but he was more feral, more hungry, more like Hannibal himself in some ways.

Will looked down and tried to cool the rush of blood in his ears. The pounding that screamed at him “YES! Hannibal is here. All is right now.” The rush of endorphins his presence released in Will almost drowned out the pain in his gut. He’d inwardly laughed at his older cousins during their Finiis'ral, at how they had followed their intendeds around like puppies for days. Now he felt like a jerk and a hypocrite. Because the singing in his veins was so much worse than that, he was sure following him around like a puppy would not be enough. He wanted, no he needed to crawl inside him. To feel his blood rushing around him like a river, to feel the breath in his lungs rush across his skin, to exist inside his scent forever. He felt a cloying, suffocating, type of possessiveness, as though even complete ownership would never be enough.

He closed his eyes tight. He took a deep breath through his mouth, refusing to smell him anymore. He counted to ten slowly. He breathed out. He reminded himself he was a prince of the Sovereign Dynasty of Krios Prime. His family was well respected on hundreds of worlds. And he was not going to be crawling inside anybody. He opened his eyes and looked up pushing the calm through his body centimeter by centimeter.

“My Finiis'ral is progressing faster than I expected. I don’t feel very good." He said gesturing to the med kit below him. Will merely said I don't feel very good, even though it wasn't precisely true, because it seemed simpler than explaining that every moment spent away from him was like a clawing desperate need that tore through his gut, and every moment spent in his presence meant he had to fight back a crushing, confusing chaos, a tsunami of lust, and unfamiliar emotions that rushed through him.

“I’m just going to find a quiet corner and go meditate.” He added.

Hannibal nodded at him. “This is for you.” He replied, holding out some emergency rations and water.

“Thank you.” Will replied, taking them from him while carefully avoiding any actual contact between their fingers. He raised himself up from his crouch self consciously keeping his gaze down.

“Not fond of eye contact?” Hannibal lilted teasingly.

At this Will’s eyes seemed to be locked to Hannibal’s, moving from no contact to an almost impolitely intense level of eye contact.

“I’m an empath. I don’t want to see too much. Not now.” Was all he said before he turned away and walked back to the other side of the ship.

 


	5. Another Ticking Bomb to Bury Deep and Detonate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal figures out how to remove the Orions implants, but the necessity of their close proximity has some... stimulating effects.

Hannibal hadn’t really seen much of Will for the last couple of days. He seemed to conspicuously always be as far as it was possible to be from Hannibal, with a precision and accuracy that spoke to an intense awareness of where Hannibal was at every moment. But Hannibal himself only knew of this because of his own intense awareness of where Will was.

Considering the strange side effects they already seemed to be sharing, he figured it was sensible that Will was staying as far away from him as he could get. But the need to seek him out, to be near him for no particular reason was an urge he had had to constantly fight back. Still mild but irritating, like an insect bite he knew he couldn’t scratch, but it just wouldn’t stop itching. He was relieved there was only a little over a day left before they would reach Krios Prime. He pushed back the voice that told him not to take him back to Krios Prime, that they would take his Will away from him. Will wasn’t his to keep. If he wanted to be returned to his people then that was what he would have to do.

Hannibal had studied the medical logs of the Orion ship carefully, specifically the information about the implants they had put in their necks. He wanted to remove them as soon as he could be sure it was safe. Leaving them in would leave them vulnerable if any Orions showed up to claim their ship, and then they would be right back where they started. It was designed to be very precarious to remove in order to prevent escape. Apparently they thought it would be better to risk losing some slaves unnecessarily than let it be too easy for them to escape.

Now he was sat in front of the mirror with a scalpel to his neck, glad for his typically calm nerves and cool emotions. The scalpel didn’t hurt as it sliced, because it was so sharp, but as soon as he began pulling the device from his skin it hurt very much. The flesh that had already begun to knit closed and healed around it had ripped free with a jolt of pain and a fresh gush of blood. He made a mental note to slice underneath Will’s implant so he could avoid hurting him as much. He dropped the device in a biological storage container and held some medical gauze tight to his neck until the blood flow slowed, and then he bandaged his neck with some medical tape and gauze. Now that he knew he could get it out safely. It was time to find Will and remove his device.

He found Will as expected, meditating quietly as far away from where Hannibal had been as was possible. He knew Will knew he was there, but he was clearly hoping that if he ignored Hannibal he would go away. Hannibal reminded himself that Will was being sensible. That this was nothing personal, but he wanted very much for Will to be happy that he was near him. It seemed to physically hurt how much he wanted it.

“We need to get that device out of your neck. If the Orion syndicate locates their ship they will be able to control us when they return for it. Without these we’ll have a chance to escape. “ He said gesturing toward Will’s neck.

Will merely nodded to him and pulled his shaggy curls back from his neck revealing the small rectangular device implanted just below his ear. Hannibal swallowed hard. He became dimly aware that his heart was pounding quickly in his chest. He hadn’t thought this through. It had taken him twenty minutes of careful slicing to get that thing out of his neck. How was he supposed to be that close to Will for twenty minutes and still concentrate? How was he supposed to slice into that smooth pale neck and stay composed and in control? Forget in control. If his heart was pounding this hard at just the idea, the act itself would probably cause him to have a stroke or heart attack before he had the chance to get out of control.

He once again found his legs folding under him with no decision on his part. As he entered Will’s space the warm smell of him enveloped him. It was amorphous; it didn’t smell like anything solid, maybe sunshine, or fire. Not smoke. Just fire. He jolted himself out of his thoughts, biting his tongue, and pressing his fingernails sharply into his palms to focus himself, before reaching to the device at Will's neck to feel at the edges of where he needed to cut. He could smell him so much more now that he was closer. And now, mixed with that amorphous almost magical scent that he assumed was Will’s bonding pheromones he could smell the more common salty smell of sweat, and beneath that a fevered sweetness, a heat was present. He hoped this was due to the Finiis'ral and there wasn’t something else medically wrong with Will. But he did not feel brave enough to ask, so he just focused on breathing through his mouth and he lifted the scalpel to cut into Will’s neck.

At the feel of it pressing into his skin Will let out a soft whimper, and his neck began to quiver and thrum under his fingers as his respiration rate increased. Hannibal gasped quietly at the feel of Will’s rabbit fast movements beneath his fingers. Then he remembered why he had been breathing through his mouth when the smell of Will’s blood hit him. It had the same metallic smell as Hannibal’s own and the warm bright red of it as it flowed over his fingertips was the same as Hannibal’s as well.

He noticed in a remote kind of way that his fingers were pressing tightly into Will’s throat. The tips of his fingers were leaving spots of ruptured rosy capillaries against his pale flesh. Distantly he thought that this was very rude behavior. That he ought to stop this. But the sounds Will made beneath him were not fearful, but appreciative and urgent. He could hear nothing but encouragement in them. His cock, which had begun to stiffen the moment he had first sat beside Will and smelled him, was now painfully engorged and dripping pre-cum against the inside of his thigh.

This desire for contact, for friction, was not a new sensation for him, but the intensity of it was, and his fears had been fully realized, because he knew he could not concentrate like this. He would mess something up, and hurt Will and then, and then what? Hannibal would never recover. His happiness had never been so thoroughly dependent on the continued existence of another before and it was terrifying.

“Stop doing that.” He growled out. His voice cracking and strained to his own ears.

“Stop doing what?” Will panted back.

  
“Stop everything... Everything that you are doing. Right now.” He sounded pleading and desperate too his ears but he hoped that was enough to convey his urgency for this request.

Will promptly started the same ritual he had repeated every time he had seemed to get out of control or when he had seen him meditating. He clamped his eyes shut, breathed in through his mouth held his breath for a while and then breathed out deeply and slowly. Hannibal began to copy him. If this helped then he needed it as well. After a while he did start to feel calmer. He was still only inches from Will, not because he hadn’t thought some space would be a good idea but because his body hadn’t cooperated with this suggestion. But now that some of that urgency was slackening he thought it would be best to get back to removing the device before his senses left him again.

 


	6. Has Something Deep Inside of Us Come Undone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will learns more about his would be savior, and he can't say he finds this new knowledge very comforting, but it may already be to late to avoid the consequences of their time together. Can will convince Hannibal to leave him in order to spare him a possibly terrible fate?

Will had never experienced a sensation quite like this before. Well, he guessed that wasn’t quite true. He had experienced many sensations like this before. Exactly like this even. He had been cut, he’d had stitches, he’d had minor surgeries. All those sensations were comparable to this in their own ways. But the feeling. The actual feeling itself was completely new. If you asked him to explain he wouldn’t be able to. This was so far beyond his scope of experience that he had no hope of understanding the smallest part of it. All he knew was that the sensations through his body and the feelings through his mind were combining to an effect that he had no barriers against. He felt tidal currents and crashing waves trying to pull him out to sea.

He had been a metamorph for twenty-two years. He had been changing to please others for as long as he could remember. But he had never felt so thoroughly possessed by another before now. The scent of Hannibal engulfed him. He couldn't breathe. He didn’t want to. He heard an utterly pornographic whimpering and it definitely wasn’t Hannibal’s voice. He realized sluggishly, and with great embarrassment, that by process of elimination the indecent sound could only be coming from him. But before he could adequately follow through on an attempt to lessen the noise, and thus his humiliation, he could feel Hannibal’s fingers tighten around his throat, the air passing into his lungs clamped into a slow trickle. Which did eventually have the effect of dampening the volume on his whimpering.

Will knew that this was an objectively concerning happening. His air-flow was now under Hannibal’s control and not his own. It seemed like the kind of thing he should be upset about. Or try to do something about. But he couldn’t. He merely tilted his head back further, relaxing into his hold and pressing his throat up further into Hannibal’s searing fingertips. He throbbed all over with a pulse he couldn’t determine the origin of. Was it Hannibal’s heartbeat or his own? Hannibal stiffened and pulled away from him. His voice was commanding. Will answered in confusion before he could fully process the words. The meaning was apparent enough from the warning tone anyway, but Will’s mind was slow to emerge from his haze to cooperate.

He was breathing in and out slowly now. Trying to gain control. He noticed that Hannibal was mimicking him, and then he abruptly tried not to think about what Hannibal was doing. But forcing yourself not to think about someone while they’re cutting into your neck was an exercise in futility, so he decided to turn his thoughts to a more analytical focus that might allow him to get through the rest of this procedure without embarrassing himself further.

As humiliating as his response to Hannibal cutting into him had been, it was in itself full of clues. Because of what he was it was safe to assume he wasn’t doing these bizarre things or having these strange responses for no reason, it was more than likely it was because it was the way Hannibal would want him to behave.

He had deliberately not asked Hannibal much about himself because he’d had the sense that Hannibal was a very private person, but mostly because he was so intensely interested in knowing more about Hannibal, and he had to assume that fighting his natural urges was the right choice in these circumstances. With his finiis'raal in full swing his instincts would be encouraging him towards anything that would bond him to someone. His instincts begged him to ask him questions, to learn everything he could about him, to learn what he liked, to impress him. Will needed to stop that chain of events before it got started. He was in bad enough circumstances already and for once, just once, he wished his unusual instincts weren’t going to make everything worse as they always did.

He thought about his own reactions, and Hannibal’s reactions to his reactions. He analyzed the sensory experience, cross-referencing them with what he knew about other species. He wished his studies of other species hadn’t focused so much on diplomacy. Perhaps if he’d studied medicine this wouldn’t be as much of a challenge for him now, but from what he knew about most humanoid species, information about their mating practices were the least likely information they would share with outsiders. Even between species that were very friendly it wasn’t a well-discussed area.

He didn’t particularly look like he could be from any of the species he knew to have fairly violent bloody mating practices; Nausicans, Romulans, Klingons. He’d heard once that Vulcan’s sometimes didn’t survive their mating ceremonies, but he would classifiy vulcans as unusually secretive on that subject, so Will wasn’t exactly sure what could be going on during their rituals that was life threatening, but at any rate Hannibal didn’t look any more Vulcan than he did Klingon. Although he had heard a few reports of other diplomats encountering Klingons who looked startlingly different from how most Klingons did. And the more he thought about it the more he realized that it was possible Hannibal could be Klingon.

He walked a bit like a Klingon, and his smile was very Klingon. The way his lips pulled back as though avoiding a phantom pointed edged on his flat teeth. He wondered if it was possible he could be Klingon despite his appearance. There had been rumors about the peculiar affliction that had affected the Klingons. That it had cosmetic effects, but what these effects were he did not know. The Klingon Empire was extremely secretive about the mysterious malady. Could it be possible for a virus to alter a Klingons appearance so much? Klingons were not exactly allies of the Kriosians. He had already shared so much about himself with this man he felt he was owed some answers to his questions.

“What species are you?”

Hannibal’s brows met in a quizzical expression as though he couldn’t understand the relevance of such a question, but he did not seem offended that he had asked it.

“I’m human… technically.”

Will’s eyebrows widened in surprise. He had always wanted to meet a human. But he tried to squash down his excitement before it became evident. The fact that this answer was the one he most desired to hear made him inherently suspicious of Hannibal’s motives. It was true that he did look human. But humans weren’t exactly unusual looking as species went. Many species looked exactly like humans and still many others looked the same until you looked more closely. Kriosian’s themselves would probably fit into this category. His manner of speech and fighting also had alarm bells ringing through his head. He had researched human culture and there wasn’t much to indicate that any of the behavior he had seen from him so far was typical for humans.

“I don’t believe you. I know all about humans and they do not speak of the their enemies as coldly, nor is ripping out their throats seen as a reasonable battle tactic. They use phasers.”

Hannibal’s mouth stretched into a silent laugh at his words and Will started to flush with irritation.

  
“I suppose that is why I said I am only technically human. I am a remnant from ancient times, a genetically altered relic. They stopped making humans like me hundreds of years ago because we were too bloodthirsty and dangerous to exist alongside the rest of humanity. As far as I know I am the only one left.”

  
Will’s brow was furrowed in confusion now, but Hannibal continued his explanation.

“I was salvaged from amongst the rubble of an accident by the Klingons when I was a embryo in cryostasis. I was raised on Qu'Vat Colony by a Klingon scientist.”

Will wasn’t aware there was such a thing as a Klingon scientist. Although now that he was thinking about it they must have them. Their technology was too sophisticated not to. He had just never heard of them… as though the empire was ashamed of their very existence.

But being raised by any Klingon, even a scientific one, explained a lot about his demeanor so far, and ripping people's throats out wasn’t exactly as much of a red flag in Klingons as it was in other species. So he was satisfied for now that there was no cause for alarm just yet. Or rather there was no cause for _further_ alarm. He inwardly corrected himself. There was already plenty of cause for alarm. Pretty much the entire sphere of his existence was cause right now.

Will Winced as Hannibal swiftly ripped the last bit of the device free from his neck and sealed it into the same container where his own device lay. He pushed a mound of gauze over the spot as more blood began to well out of it. He watched in apparent fascination as the gauze slowly filled with blood.

There was no longer much of a reason for Hannibal's face to be inches away from Will’s neck, yet there he was. He could feel his warm breaths tickling against his ear. Will pulled back just enough so that he could focus his eyes on Hannibal’s own, his fingers swapping spots with Hannibal’s as he pulled his gloved hand back from the wound on Will’s neck, gaze fixated on the crimson droplets of blood that pooled on the tips of his gloves.

Will noticed he was holding his breath in silent anticipation of what Hannibal would do next. Hannibal’s lips drew up in a salacious smile, drawing Will into a predatory kind of eye contact before he opened his mouth and stuck the tips of his index and middle finger inside his mouth, the slow pull of his lips and tongue seemed intimate and performative at once, and the illicit combination had caused a pained gasp to escape his lips.

Hannibal’s eyes were closed now and his face was lit with an intimate pleasure, as though Will’s blood was the most beautiful tasting substance in the world. It made him curious and envious. His eyes darted to the reddening bandage at Hannibal’s neck. He wondered if Hannibal would taste as wonderful to him as he seemed to taste to Hannibal.

He swallowed heavily and the next moment he felt Hannibal’s fingers at his jaw. His eyes were locked on Will’s as though he could telepathically communicate his intent if he stared hard enough.

He stared at Hannibal's mouth, watching his lips part around the digits as he pressed them in further, his tongue wrapped and swiped along the length as though trying to get every last drop of Will's blood. When he pulled his fingers away Will could see a smear of red along his lips. He couldn't stop staring at his mouth and his own blood lying there. He wanted to taste it, him.

He looked up into the depths of warm brown eyes that had seemed to soften his impossibly sharp features. Will thought he was the most beautiful man he had ever seen. His hair a rich brown at the roots, and sun-lightened to a golden tone at the ends. It just barely brushed his shoulders. His tanned skin seemed to gleam where it was stretched taut over perfectly proportioned muscles that were ill concealed beneath his battered tight clothing. And the way he was looking at Will was... was something he didn't have words for, but it made it impossible for him to breathe. 

"Will." Hannibal said with shaking in his voice. 

But the way he said it, as though his name meant the most amazing thing in the world, but also with a needy, admiring, aggressive tone that made Will's extremities tingle, and his head go suddenly too light, he practically crumpled into Hannibal’s chest. Pressing his face into the crook of his neck and inhaling his scent deeply. It was not as strong as a Kriosian’s but he still held traces of those pheromones that sought to cement their bond. He did not mind the weaker scent. It felt less like manipulation this way.

He leaned forward suddenly, tilting his chin up and pressing his lips lightly to Hannibal's. He could feel the slick of blood transfer onto his lips and he pulled back a few inches to lick it off. He savored the salty tang of it as he watched Hannibal take in the movement of his tongue with a look of relentless fascination. Hannibal reached a hand behind his head and carded his fingers through Will's dark curls, using his grip there to pull Will in for another kiss. Hannibal returned the press of lips Will had given him but after a moment he parted his lips and lingered there at his mouth, breathing the same air as him. He inched forward so slowly that Will had plenty of time to tilt his head and part his own lips before their mouths met. 

Will had thought the quick press of lips from before was the single best sensation he had ever experienced, but this kiss, with it's wet, and heat, and tongue and teeth, jolted though his nervous system with one hundred times more intensity, and he was groaning into his mouth now, panting for air with each sparing pause so that he could press back in for more. He could feel Hannibal's body wrapping around him, each limb moving in to enclose him in walls of firm flesh. He could feel Hannibal's fingers brushing past his neck and jaw, could feel him pressing exploratory hands into whatever of Will's he could reach without abandoning his attentions to his mouth. 

He shuddered as Hannibal’s fingers grazed his neck possessively. Hannibal shifted beneath him and Will realized he had practically crawled into his lap in his desperate attempt to chase the sensations and closeness he was feeling with Hannibal. He pulled back for a moment staring into Hannibal's eyes, then he lifted his hips and swung a leg over him, until he was kneeling, his legs parted on either side of Hannibal's lap, and head tilted down so he could continue this frantic breathless kiss. Hannibal slid his hands up to grip Will at his waist, and Will responded by sliding his fingers into Hannibal's hair, delighting as he felt the slip of soft strands between his fingers. He had never felt anything like this before. Hannibal smelled so good, he felt so good, the way his lips moved against him was perfection. He never wanted to leave this spot. 

Hannibal's breathing was frantic, his hair was mussed, his eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed slightly as though kissing Will was very serious business. Will felt a wild an extreme pleasure rush through him suddenly, and the source of it was the pressure of fingers against his groin. He reached out in a shocked instinctual response, grabbing at the hand that had been caressing him. He stared down at Hannibal's fingers where they lay against Will's straining erection. He wanted nothing more than to let Hannibal continue with what he had started, but now that he had a moment to think and breathe he couldn't shake the conviction that there was a reason, a good reason, that they shouldn't be doing this.

"We shouldn't." He whispered breathlessly against Hannibal's lips.

Hannibal pulled his fingers back and slid them back to Will's waist but otherwise made no move to disentangle them. He gazed up at Will plaintively from beneath his golden fringe of lashes.

 “I look at you and I very much want to do things I never thought I would want. Something about you has changed me.”

Will didn’t doubt that long term exposure to his pheromones was changing the other man, but he hoped that some of that was just the natural maturation process for humans. After all he seemed very young, and he had been living in isolation on a planet by himself for what had probably been years. He would probably be feeling new things just from the presence of an attractive person near his own age. It might have nothing to do with bonding.

He tried to convince himself of this and it seemed to work, but for only a moment. His burning desire to fling himself into Hannibal’s arms and work out the consequences later had overpowered his common sense in that moment, but now the moment had passed and he knew what the right thing to do was. Just because his nature allowed him to make anyone love him was not an excuse to go around seducing people into a life-long bond. He knew he had to send him away. He tilted his head to look down into Hannibal's eyes, he made an effort to un-soften his face. He tried to look as serious as he could.

“You need to leave me here now.” He told Hannibal.

 


	7. Truth is in us all, cradle to the grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will reveals a dangerous secret about his biology, and attempts to warn Hannibal off. But does their attachment already run to deep to avoid bonding? Will doesn't know how to trust his or Hannibal's instincts while they are under the influence of his Finiis'ral but he may have no other choice.

“You need to leave me here now.” He told Hannibal.

“What? No! you’ll never make it back to your people without me. Have you ever had to fly anything?” He added skeptically.

“No. But I will try my best. If I can’t make it home on my own I will send out a Kriosian distress call and hope one of my people will hear it and come. Or if you’d rather I could leave in one of the escape pods and send out a distress call from a nearby planet. But one of us needs to leave right away or we will imprint on each other and the bond will seal permanently.

Hannibal's brow furrowed. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want that? Your only option at this point is to bond with a complete stranger. I know you haven’t known me very long but surely I’m no longer a stranger. And we are very compatible. I feel it. How well we could get along. Don’t you?”

  
They were always going to get along. That was the whole point of his metamorphic abilities Will thought. But he didn’t say this to Hannibal because in truth he thought he knew what Hannibal was talking about, and he did feel it. He had changed just as much for others, but he hadn’t enjoyed what he was changing into as much. He had found the changes scary, isolating. Now he felt like he was becoming a part of something greater. But was it real? Or was it his Finiis'ral manipulating him? Was his desire, his need, to not be alone right now overriding his common sense?

“I couldn’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for me like that. You don’t understand the bond. Humans don’t have anything like it. You won’t ever be able to leave me. We’ll be together till one of us dies. You won’t be able to go on with your life, date, have a human family. Your whole life you will be bound to me.”

“I never said I wanted any of those things. Dating, having a family, was never something I was going to do, never something I wanted. I would have spent the rest of my life living alone on a dangerous planet reading through data banks and murdering hapless wanderers if I hadn’t come across you. And I can think of no more perfect life than living for you. I have never wanted anything so much.”

Will felt breathless and electric with excitement at Hannibal’s words. He hadn’t realized how desperately he had wanted to hear just that. But he couldn’t allow Hannibal to put himself at Will’s mercy, especially since he didn’t know that’s what he might be doing. “You can’t. It isn’t safe.” He tried to will his face not to crumple. “I haven’t told you everything.”

“Well you better tell me now then.”

Hannibal’s face looked so calm, so confident that Will could say nothing to change his mind. He steeled himself to push him away as hard as he needed to, because there’s no way Will was worth it.

“I’m not a full Kriosian. I’m a Kriosian – Human hybrid.” He could see Hannibal’s lips twitch in surprise at this news.

“You gave no indication you were that familiar with my species.”

“I’m not really. I just happen to have a human father. I only met him once.” He sighed stalling his next sentence as much as he could.

“The problem is that Kriosian hybrids with non-empathic species are highly unstable, especially if they turn out to be empaths. We need the empathy gene from both parents. If we have only one we will still be empaths, but our ability to form a normal bond will be highly compromised. The consequences range from very mild to very dangerous and harmful.”

“Just tell me exactly what you mean by consequences.”

“I only know what’s been told to me, which wasn’t a lot. Probably because they never thought I would be in this circumstance. Apparently we could either have a very weak bond for an empath bonding, or it would be an excessively strong bond. This could mean just an irritatingly high level of codependency, a total inability to be physically separated for any reason, or even a pathologically damaging neural link. So damaging my people only whisper of it in hushed voices over drink, or telling urban legends to scare their friends. But since I am an unstable hybrid I have the dubious privilege of knowing that it is a very real risk.”

“Just tell me. What is it?”

“They call it the slave bond. Apparently sometimes unstable hybrids can… I don’t know what to call it.., sort of weaponize their mating bond. Use their empathy to control their partner. Mess with their free will. It is so feared on my world most hybrids take suppressants for their whole lives rather than risk making a slave bond."

“It doesn’t sound that much different than what would happen to you anyway. Why is it okay for your free will to be messed with but not your bondmates?”

“Empath’s are born that way. There is a world of difference between doing something that gives you satisfaction because it’s in your nature and having something you were never born for forced on you. At least on my world.”

“But you wouldn’t use this slave bond on me even if we did have it would you? I guess I haven’t known you very long, but it doesn’t seem like something you would do.”

“Of course I wouldn’t if I had a choice, but no one on my world talks about it. I don’t know how it works. It could end up being automatic. Something that happens and is beyond my control, their would be no way to tell until it is too late.”

Will sighed out loud and added. “The weak bond is much more common. But I don’t feel like it will be a weak bond. Do you?” He turned back to analyze Hannibal’s face, truly curious for his answer. Wanting to know if the intensity of the pull he was feeling was one sided or not.

“No. Definitely not.”

Will shouldn’t feel relieved at that answer. It likely meant something scary was waiting for them. But he couldn’t help the surge of joy and possessiveness that pulsed in him at Hannibal’s words.

He forced his eyes back down. He couldn’t look at him. If he did he was sure his eyes would be pleading for something that was very ill advised, and very dangerous.

“So you see why you have to leave. It’s probably too late to stop my Finiis'ral completely, but if you leave now we can avoid imprinting on each other.”

“Is that what you want? Why? So you can immediately imprint on whoever comes to your rescue?” Will could see when he started to picture it because a snarl contorted his face. Will wasn’t sure he even knew what imprinting was in this context but it seemed he was already certain he didn’t want Will doing it with anyone but him.

“I know I’m no Kriosian princess but surely I’m better than a total stranger.”

Will could hear the hurt in his voice and he realized that his attempt to respect Hannibal’s autonomy was having an unexpected downside. Will would probably not be imprinting on a stranger because he was pretty certain he had already imprinted on Hannibal. But telling him that would likely have the opposite effect of warning him off, and the last thing he wanted in his future was a mate who resented him for not giving him enough of a chance to back out.

“No. It’s not like that, it’s just..." Will struggled to articulate his intentions adequately.

“I just wanted to make sure that you had a choice. That you didn’t end up bonded to me just because you were trying to save me.

“I appreciate you telling me the risks I am facing. But it does not change anything for me. I’m not one to sacrifice myself for others, and I’m not doing this against my will. I’m not leaving.”

“But I am dangerous!”

“So am I. I am a mentally unstable, violent, bloodthirsty augment. At best my people consider me to be a biohazard; harmful medical waste to be disposed of before I become a danger to all who come in contact with me. I am no easy victim. It will not be fun, or happy, or safe, to be my bondmate either. But I selfishly want it anyway, and you are not going to convince me that I can’t have it. You shall have me here for as long as you want me."

"But if you don't leave now that will be forever!" Will hissed out in a panicked tone.

"Good"

"Good?"

"Yes"

Will lifted his gaze back to Hannibal and felt a rush excitement pounding through him at the intensity of his lust filled gaze. He looked like a hungry predator salivating to sink his teeth into some prey, and Will very much wanted those teeth inside him. He swallowed hard and tried to force his breathing to stay calm, but he was nearing the end of his self-control. It would crumple very soon.

“Doesn’t it bother you knowing why you want it? Doesn’t it feel like manipulation?”

“All of my survival instincts are manipulations. I breathe because my cells need it. I eat so my DNA can survive. It’s all a manipulation. That doesn’t make it a good idea for me to fight it, or make me enjoy the process any less.”

Those words sounded quite wise to Will, and they did a lot to quell the panic that wanted to clench at his throat. Such reasonable words and the calm attitude behind it seemed to him at odds with Hannibal’s appearance, which despite his height and muscles, still held something of the countenance of a feral child.

“How old are you?” Will asked him.

Hannibal looked startled and then thoughtful. He appeared to be silently calculating. It had apparently been a long time since he had considered his own age.

“Seventeen.” He answered. He seemed to be slightly flushed from embarrassment at this confession. “That sounds young doesn’t it?”

“Well yes. Pretty young.”

Will thought about his studies of humans. It had been a few hundred years since marriages with humans of such a young age had taken place. The increase in human lifespans had relegated a modern seventeen year old to the category of child despite the fact that they were physically quite capable of reproduction. But he supposed it had been even longer since anyone as young as him had been bonded on Krios, and he shouldn’t even be capable of reproduction yet if it weren’t for his medical freak status, so he supposed despite having been alive longer he was actually less mature than Hannibal in some relative sense.

So there were yet more reasons this was an ill-advised decision, but at least if they were technically children, they would be so together. No one would be cast as the cradle robber or creep in this bonding. It would just be creepy all around. That was something at least.

“I’ve been on my own a long time already. I never paid attention to my age. I never considered that I could be young until now. Does that sound strange?”

I suppose it makes sense. Your age doesn’t really matter when you’re alone. But don’t worry about it. I am only twenty-two, and that is very young for a Kriosian.

Now that a silence had fell between the two of them it was very clear something was different. Something felt different. It could be the fact that he no longer felt the need to warn Hannibal off, and the immensity of meaning that inaction garnered. Not, refusing something was in this case much the same as deciding to do it. The outcome was the same. Which meant he wasn’t just deciding to give up on getting Hannibal to leave, he was getting bonded. He had just decided to be bonded. It felt immense to him. 


	8. Hidden Behind Shirts, Ties and Marriages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will knows he and Hannibal need to deal with the consequences of becoming bonded. But first they are going to experience the benefits.

He had just decided to be bonded. It felt immense to him.

"So what now?

“What now? He repeated stupidly back to him.

“Yes. How do we finish the bonding process?

He was still just staring. He was probably just in shock but suddenly the idea that Hannibal expected him of all people to know what to do now seemed ludicrous. Quieting his tremulous nerves, he forced himself to think back to what he knew of his own metamorphic biology. 

Will focused his thoughts, mentally filing through what he knew. The easiest and most common way to finally cement the bond was through mutual intent. Hannibal's side of the bond had probably sealed when he had said that he wasn't leaving. That was a pretty clear declaration of intent, but when had Will's side been sealed? At what moment did his intent become to accept the bond? Was it that moment he had finally given in to his screaming urges and pressed himself into Hannibal's arms? Was it earlier when Hannibal had first pressed those claiming hands around his throat and Will's only response had been a needy whimper? Or was it more recent? Was it only just now, when he knew that Hannibal knew everything and he didn't care?

Will didn't know. All he knew was that he had definitely had the intent at some point, and still did. He could feel the bond growing and thrumming, it was like a heat at the back of his head. Will, had he been feeling anything rational, should be feeling trepidation about his life suddenly veering into such unpredictable territory, but he was not, he was feeling amazing. He tried to catalogue everything he could feel about who he was right now, because he knew he would be like this forever now. 

He felt much the same as he always used to. Pragmatic, sensitive, responsible, antisocial, even his sarcastic attitude felt the same, but other things felt entirely different, he felt energized and tingly, he was completely unafraid despite how good his cause for it was. His analytical nature and his senses had extended to things he had never bothered with before, like the aesthetic design of the ship, and the salty smell of Hannibal's skin. His sense of smell was much more sensitive than it had ever been, and Will assumed Hannibal's own sense of smell must be similarly excellent, and the bond was sharing abilities across their link.

Will was thrilled. This ability sharing was not common in metamorph bonds. It was not often that people actually wanted their partner to be as good as them at some ability they had possessed, most wanted to be better at something, wanted to look important in their bondmates eyes, but apparently Hannibal was not petty like that. A few minutes into their bond and he was already sharing so much of himself and his impressive abilities.

“I think it already happened."

"What?! When?”

It was clear that Hannibal thought a bonding should finalize with a clap of thunder booming in the background, or something else suitably dramatic. He suppose permanence would probably seem extreme and daunting for a species not built for it.

"It happened when we both wanted it to happen, probably sometime when we were talking?"

"Just like that?"

"Yeah. What did you think was supposed to happen?"... Will grinned at him teasingly "You were thinking it needed consummation?"

Hannibal's fair eyebrows darted sharply up in surprise, and he quickly flushed in embarrassment. "What?! No! I meant like vows?

"Well we do them sometimes for political marriages, but they are really just for show. The bond enforces itself. I suppose a species that has them doesn't need to bother with vows. Do you want to do them? Do you know the human ones? Doesn't it require someone to do it for you?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter, Klingon vows are the only ones that have ever meant anything to me and they are very informal. I can see what you mean about the bond enforcing itself, however the value of taking vows is that it can afford you spousal legal protection in societies that don't recognize, or have specific laws for psychic bonds. So when we have the chance we should get legally married in every way that could be required in this quadrant. I don't want anybody thinking they can separate us."

Will's heart pounded at the possessive growl in Hannibal's words. Suddenly he remembered Hannibal coated in the blood of the Orion slavers, Hannibal's teeth ripping chunks out of the larger mans throat as green gouts of blood sprayed across his neck. At the thought he felt such a warm flood of relief. Hannibal would never let them be separated, he would murder thousands to keep Will with him.

Old Will would not have found relief at these images, or the thought of people dying because of him, but apparently new Will was less judgmental, and generally more attracted to violence and possessiveness. This was probably good, because Will didn't think that their bond had had much of a tempering effect on Hannibal's bloodthirsty streak. At least it was no longer going to bother him.

"Okay... well I am a trained diplomat. I think I can remember how to do this." Will thought back to the pronunciation at the only Klingon wedding he had witnessed.

“Tingand Jee?” He said cautiously.

Hannibal laughed at his pronunciation and shook his head. “No that is for important families, politicians. Like you said ‘for show’"

“I say Jih Dok (my blood), and you say Maj Dok (our blood)

“Okay. ' _Our blood_ ” Will stated back to him in Kriosian.

“What? You’re not going to say it in Klingon?” Hannibal asked teasingly.

“Not after you laughed at me.” Will pouted at him.

“Why do you start? He asked Hannibal suspiciously. He knew Klingons obsession with growing families made them a bit heterosexist, but he certainly hoped Hannibal wasn’t trying to cast him in a female role.

It’s because I am the one who wants you to marry me. He answered with a charming smirk.

“Really? Not because you’re the man?”

Last I was noticing we are both male, yes?

“You know what I meant.” Will snapped back curtly.

“I suppose it is usually the man who starts, but I think that’s just because it is the man who wants it more. From what I've heard about the courtship process the woman throws things at them for hours. You have no idea how relieved I was when I found out that I wasn’t really Klingon. I escaped that whole mess.”

Hannibal’s face looked suddenly somber and Will guessed that ‘escape’ wasn’t exactly the right word to describe how Hannibal had come to be living apart from the empire. But Will sensed that Hannibal wasn’t about to delve into an explanation on what had happened, and he was proven right a moment later.

I always thought those vows were silly, but I feel it now. You really are in my blood.

“Yes.” Will answered nodding. It does feel… different.

“My Blood” Hannibal repeated as he gazed back at Will. His gaze was heating now and lighting a fire in Will.

Before Will had the chance to formulate a reaction Hannibal was so near him, right in his space, he had seized Will's hand and he was squeezing it in his own fist. Will could feel the small bones of his hand squeezing against each other tightly and he could feel his own finger nails biting into his palm from the pressure, but it felt amazing. He could feel his own pulse thrumming under Hannibal’s fingers where their hands were pressed together so tightly. It felt like their blood was thrumming together in one great roar of deafening tactile sensation.

Hannibal began to push against his arm, and Will followed along with it until he was being pushed aggressively against the floor, and held down there by his still captured fist.

“See.” Hannibal whispered. “I can take on the feminine role as well.”

“Hmmm…” Will practically purred into Hannibal's neck. “Klingon women must be very strong.

“You don’t need to be strong to prevail against an opponent who wants to lose.” Hannibal smiled as he pressed his nose into Will’s hair.

“Are you saying I want to lose?”

“No more talking.” Hannibal growled into his ear.

He rocked against Will’s hip and he could feel his arousal pressing against him there. Thanks to his newly sensitive nose he had already been aware of how aroused this was making Hannibal, but actually feeling the size of him pressing against him began to spark new and hungry sensations in Will’s body. He wanted him closer even though the thought seemed impossible as tightly intertwined as they were.

He slid his nose along the warm heat of his neck until his nose hit the soft fabric of the bandage at his neck. He could smell the metallic saltiness of his clotting blood and he lifted his hand to rip the bandage free. The blood had not fully clotted yet, and this new movement jolted the wound until the blood flowed freely again. Will lifted his mouth to the flowing wound and clamped his teeth down on either side of it, the pressure of his teeth causing the blood to pulse slightly into his mouth. He moaned as the rich taste of it spread across his tongue. He could feel Hannibal shudder against him and at the movement he felt a brush of delicious friction that made him realize his own cock was trapped hard and throbbing between them, digging into Hannibal’s belly. Will squirmed against him trying to increase the friction he felt there. He felt incredibly frustrated, he wanted something to happen, he needed something anything, if only he could think or give his desires voice.

He could feel Hannibal's desire and his own echoing and thrumming between them, building on each other, reflecting back into their bond endlessly, like a hall of mirrors. It was so intense. It was so bright. He panted through gritted teeth, his eyes scrunched tightly closed. He wanted to run; to retreat to the other side of the ship and calm himself down. That was the only way he knew how to deal with this feeling. But he knew that wouldn't help him now, because the source of the overwhelming feeling was now inside his own head. A part of him, and wherever Will went it would follow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I let this go un-updated for so long. My grandmother had just died, and then I got a much more time consuming job, and then my country decided to go all suicide bomber/blaze of glory on the world. So it's been a lot.
> 
> But if I don't keep updating my gay, violent, murder husbands in space porn then they win. So I am going to do my best to get back to work on this and post regularly.


	9. Yeah, We Can Be Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do I summarize plotless smut? Let's just say they engage in explorations in both the psychic and the physical.

Hannibal had tried to play it cool and deny it, but he had indeed been expecting that vows, or consummation, or both would be how the bond was cemented. He had been surprised that something that momentous could just sneak up on you while you were having a conversation, that in one moment you could become bonded for life and not even notice it, and never have the precise moment it happened to reflect back on. Now that Will had told him he could feel it though. It was like a warm brush of air against his very core, and it was a deeply satisfying feeling. This feeling was something he had been straining to reach for days whether he knew it or not, and now it was his to cherish forever. It was something new and permanent and it felt like it.

He could have reveled in the new sensation of Will and his bond to him for hours, but then Will smiled at him in this way that stole all his air. His blue eyes seemed to burn molten right to his core. Hannibal's arousal grew until he no longer felt that exploring Will psychically was sufficient, in fact he was beginning to feel more like this consummation thing was necessary after all. Maybe it wasn't required to cement the bond, but it did _feel_ very required, urgent even.

He could feel Will inside him, he could feel the overwhelming torrent of his emotions, sensations, and he knew what he wanted and what he needed. That was a very convenient thing because he found that the single most important thing to him was giving Will exactly what he wanted.

It seemed they actually both wanted the same thing, which was touching and tasting more of each other's skin. Will was almost frantically peeling Hannibal out of his tattered tight clothing, while Hannibal had found some snaps that unfastened the looser folds of Will's clothing. He pushed back the folds of Will's tunic to reveal his smooth chest. He had pale ivory skin and the smattering of brown spots he had seen on his neck extended a little ways down his back and into a point between his shoulder blades. But a few inches lower they picked up again and flared out across his lower back and down the side of his hips.

Never in his life had he felt such a sensation of physical hunger from the sight of brown speckles. But now his mind was consumed with the urge to taste them, every single one of them. It seemed like Will would try to stifle his gasps of pleasure at first but he soon gave up as Hannibal continued exploring skin with his tongue.

Will had successfully removed Hannibal's shirt and was taking this opportunity to stroke his fingers across Hannibal's heated skin. When Hannibal's tongue grazed across a nipple, Will's fingers clenched in surprise, his blunt fingernails digging deliciously into his skin. Hannibal loved the feeling, so he returned his attention to Will's nipple, and this time he grazed his teeth across it in the hopes that this would encourage rougher treatment in turn from Will's nails, and he did not disappoint, while he still never broke the skin, this time his finger nails would definitely leave a raised trail of red against bronze where they had scratched. It would fade in a few hours, but as far as Hannibal was concerned forever wouldn't be long enough to feel his marks on his skin.

He reluctantly abandoned his attempts to catalogue the taste of each speckle on Will's neck because he needed a kiss. He needed to feel Will's lips, Will's tongue, his breath, he needed more of him. He could tell from the desperate way Will kissed him back that he wasn't the only one feeling an overwhelming cascade of sensation and emotion.

Hannibal didn't think his feelings for Will were because he was an empath, but he could definitely see why they were so sought after to be kidnapped by slavers, because every little thing that Hannibal thought would make the kiss even better was done by Will almost before he'd had the chance to think it, and all his own natural instincts seemed to drive Will more wild with desire and more aggressive in his passion, just as Hannibal liked it. His own sexual experiences were basically non existent, but still he was certain this experience would have compared very favorably against even a whole lifetime of lovers. 

Hannibal was losing track of everything. All he knew now was heat, and breath, and the slide of skin. He wasn't sure what was coming, or even what was currently happening. He felt Will's fingers press into his clothed erection, stroking it as Hannibal hissed at the jolt of of pleasure that ran through him. As soon as he regained some muscle control he reached for Will's pants and pulled them down his legs. Will's cock bounced free from its constraint. It was flushed and pink and looked much like Hannibal's own but a little shorter, and Hannibal could see a drop of precum gathered at the tip. His mouth watered with the urge to taste him so he ducked his head down to slowly lick the drop away. Will's taste was indescribable and amazing, but even better was the whimper he'd made when Hannibal's tongue had made contact with his cock, so he lowered his head down and engulfed Will's entire length in his mouth. 

Will immediately keened out and bucked up slightly before regaining some of his control, but each time he regained it, it was Hannibal's new goal to make him lose it again. When he took him in all the way to the back of his throat, his yelling out and his thighs clenching against his face had made Hannibal feel victorious. 

But Hannibal felt like he might be getting close to coming and he wanted very much to look him in the eyes as he came, to see that look of satisfaction at it's greatest height. So he crawled back up his body and began kissing him on the mouth again. But this time he began steadily stroking Will's cock while he kissed him, and before long will reached out a hand to touch Hannibal, and they kissed, and rocked, and stroked against each other until they both came in a chorus of ecstatic shouts.

Hannibal didn't know who came first, he didn't even know which orgasm that he had felt had been his own and which had been Will's. They had been so close together, and the blinding intensity of feeling two orgasms nearly simultaneously was an experience he was honestly surprised his brain could survive, genetic engineering or not.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is named after "Savages" by Marina and the Diamonds. The chapter names will probably all be lyrics from that song.
> 
> This is the link to the fanmix that CaptainWingDings made for this fic: http://captainwingdings.tumblr.com/post/150734893853
> 
> Check it out it is really great!
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading it!
> 
> I welcome feedback. 
> 
> Please feel free to comment here or on Tumblr where my name is also Eridanie


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